Dropbox

Using Dropbox:

A Dropbox is used for the electronic submission of assignments, and is a very useful tool to use in both your online and face-to-face classes. Even though you may have students turn work in during your face-to-face class, you might want to consider the dropbox, as students are becoming more accustomed to the option of electronic submission.  

Advantages of using a Dropbox:

·       Students can submit work at any time other than just during the class period. Students can submit all their work before the next class session so you have time to review.

·      Submissions are marked with a date stamp, providing evidence of the exact day and time the assignment was turned in. Once configured, D2L offers a convenient grading tool incorporated into the dropbox so that students receive immediate feedback once you complete grading. For online classes, the Dropbox tool eliminates the necessity to have students flood your email inbox with assignments.

                                             Helpful Tips:

·    Use Rubrics: Grading a Dropbox with a rubric allows you to grade your students’ submissions by simply selecting radio buttons for each predetermined criteria. If you have configured your grade book, and associated a grade item with the Dropbox, the student’s grade will automatically update to reflect the score given on the rubric.

·         Grade two ways: You can grade student submissions, by either downloading all the student files to your computer or grading directly in D2L without downloading a thing! Consider downloading all student submissions, if you are grading papers and want to provide feedback directly on the document using the track changes tool in Word. You can then post the edited assignment back to the Dropbox folder; for students to view. Or, maybe you just want to provide a short sentence or two as your feedback, and downloading all submissions is too time consuming. No worries!  You can read submissions right in the D2L dropbox window and enter feedback without even leaving the page.

·

Allow Special Access: You may have cases where students need to turn in an assignment early because they will miss the assignment deadline, or students who require additional time due to an emergency or accessibility requirement. In these cases, you can allow students special access to the Dropbox, so that they can submit their work, regardless  of the designated start and end time of the assignment.

·         Be sure to review the dropbox tutorial on the Faculty Resources page of the NLU website (http://www.nl.edu/lms/facultyresources/.) Should you have any questions about this tool, don’t hesitate to send us an email at learning@nl.edu.